Fatal robberies a rarity in Anne Arundel crime

Joshua McKerrow / Baltimore Sun Media Group

At a police press conference, posters portray stills from video surveillance footage believed to show the murderer of Rajinder Kumar, who was shot Thursday, August 7th, at his job at an Exxon gas station in Hanover.

At a police press conference, posters portray stills from video surveillance footage believed to show the murderer of Rajinder Kumar, who was shot Thursday, August 7th, at his job at an Exxon gas station in Hanover. (Joshua McKerrow / Baltimore Sun Media Group)

Brandi Bottalico, bbottalico@capgaznews.com

A customer at the Hanover Mobil put a newspaper and a soda on the counter around 5:30 p.m.

When the clerk at a nearby Exxon was killed by a robber in a similar holdup Aug. 7, Subhani said he couldn't sleep for two days.

The robberies of the Mobil and Exxon were just two of the 127 armed robberies of convenience stores and gas stations in Anne Arundel County since 2010, information obtained by the Maryland Gazette shows. Three resulted in minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes, one ended with a gunshot wound.

But just one, the Aug. 7 robbery at the Exxon at 7898 Ridge Road, escalated to a homicide. Rajinder Kumar, a 49-year-old Indian immigrant working in the United States to support his family back home, was shot to death by a masked gunman who took money from the register and fled.

"The overwhelming majority of robberies don't result in injury. They are usually hand over the money and the person flees," police spokesman Lt. T.J. Smith said. "We rarely see them robbed in a violent manor."

•Sixty-three of the robberies since 2010 occurred in the Glen Burnie area. The second highest concentration was the Brooklyn Park area, with 19.

•The remaining robberies were spread across the county, as far south as Deale and as far west as Maryland City.

•Among the 80 different business robbed since 2010, 25 were robbed more than once.

•The two businesses most often robbed were the 7-Eleven at 495 Old Mill Road in Millersville, and the 7-Eleven at 7301 E. Furnace Branch Road in Glen Burnie. Each has been robbed five times.

•Police made arrests in 32 of the robberies.

Armed robberies of convenience stores and gas stations

The robberies of the Mobil and Exxon were just two of the 127 armed robberies of convenience stores and gas stations in Anne Arundel County since 2010, information obtained by the Maryland Gazette shows. Three resulted in minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes, one ended with a gunshot wound. Click on each map point to see details of the robbery.

Kirk McCauley, a spokesman for the Washington, Maryland, Delaware Service Station and Automotive Repair Association, said armed robberies are a problem with any 24-hour business, not just gas stations and convenience stores. The trade association represents about 700 service stations and independent garages, including the Hanover Exxon.

The association hosts workshops that teach owners to keep small amounts of cash in the register, regularly drop money into a safe, clean windows and install camera systems.

"The only thing you can do to be safe is lock the door and not have contact with the customer but then you're not serving what they want," McCauley said. "(The Hanover homicide) was more of an execution, not a robbery. He didn't even give the guy a chance to give him any money."

When a robbery occurs at a gas station, the association will send out an email to members warning them, McCauley said. After the Exxon robbery, the association put the video online and sent all members a special alert.

"We let the rest of the area know and sometimes that might lead to an arrest," he said. "Someone can make a difference just by picking up a phone. I think what this is going to do is going to make more stations work through the bank style window and lock up their doors at night."

The department's results are right in line with the national standard, Smith said.

"The national clearance rate is 26, 27, 28 percent," he said. "It's going to fluctuate, some years are going to be better than others."

State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said fingerprints and DNA evidence are hard to come by in robberies. Prosecutors usually have to rely on witnesses and tips from the community.

"Robberies are a difficult crime to solve," Smith said. "One of the things we've found over the years of investigating these things is there's a small segment of people who rob places like this."

Police spokesman Justin Mulcahy said police believe many of the robberies listed as unsolved can be attributed to robbers convicted in other cases. Once a person is arrested for one, a string of similar robberies often stops.

Mulcahy also said the robbers also tend to cross jurisdictional lines. If they aren't caught in Anne Arundel County they may have been apprehended elsewhere.

Leitess said trying a suspect for multiple robberies in one trial makes a case stronger.

"They tend to have a pattern, something that sticks out that you can link," she said. "If you can prove a common scheme or plan from one crime to another, those are some of the most effective cases I've handled."

Wes Adams, the Republican challenging Leitess in November, said the more evidence a prosecuter has, the stronger the case. A prosecutor in Prince George's County, he said evidence can range from video surveillance to the identification numbers on items that were stolen.

The nature of the evidence is important, he said. If a witness can recognize the suspect through a mask, that's shaky compared to video from a surveillance camera that identifies a suspect.

"Every case stands on its own unique set of facts," Adams said.

By the time someone is charged in a case, the cumulative from several robberies evidence is often strong, Leitess said.

"When you have a strong enough case, people plead guilty," she said. "The stronger the case is, people come to plead guilty instead of going to trial after trial."

Police meet on a weekly basis with surrounding agencies to decipher any crime trends, Smith said. Police are still looking for information in the Hanover Exxon case and urge anyone who thinks they might know something to call 410-222-8610.

"The most valuable tool that we have is someone in the community coming forward," Leitess said. "Sometimes that's all that we need is a tip."

That's what happened in the robbery at the Mobil. Subhani wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle the drove drove away in and gave it to police.

The trial of the man police later arrested is coming up in the next month. Subhani is nervous.